Presidential Primary: I know we all want to feel relevant, but...

Howard Dean's claim that we will still have a heated presidential primary taking place by the time Feb. 19th rolls around is pretty unlikely.

I know we all want to feel relevant on both sides of the aisle, but really folks, the big guns are voting before we are, and we just have to live with it.

The problem is not necessarily how many states are voting in front of us, but which states are voting in front of us.

Some of the really big guns are California, New York, Illinois and Florida.

This thing will be over by Feb. 5th when 11 states vote ahead of us.

Any candidates lagging by the time the Feb 5th date has passed will most likely drop out of the race. It will be extremely expensive to continue running once the Feb. 5th date has passed and your name is not somewhere near the top.

A list of the primary dates

I know, I know- I have already heard the arguments that Hillary may not win Iowa. Beyond Iowa- Hillary is way up in the other early primary states-

Clinton +13 in New Hampshire
Clinton + 24 in Nevada
Clinton + 14 in South Carolina
Clinton +27 in Florida

It is a bit more interesting on the Republican side. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani could very well carry a snow ball effect, after the first half dozen states vote.

Romney +9 in Iowa
Romney +15 in New Hampshire
Giuliani +3 in Michigan
Romney +2 in South Carolina
Giuliani +16 in Florida

To you Thompson and McCain supporters out there, you need to be a little worried. If neither of them can put a dent in these early primary states- then they could easily get washed away in the first few weeks of primary voting.

Yes, I have seen the number on Huckabee in Iowa- he is a distant fourth and fifth once you get past Iowa. It is all over for him a few weeks later in New Hampshire and South Carolina. His people are hoping he gets a 10 days of good press and that will vault him up in these other states. The problem he has is that the other candidates will get the press also. We will see- I guess.

My guess is that with Howard Dean's pronouncement about Wisconsin, is that he is just trying to keep the troops fired up on the Democrat side of the aisle.

On the Republican side, all we need is the thought of a Hillary presidential candidate to keep us fired up.